Here is a copy of a dispatch from an official quoted in its naked frankness:
“Le Chef Ngulu de Wangata est envoyé dans la Maringa, pour m’y acheter des esclaves. Prière a MM. les agents de l’A.B.I.R. de bien vouloir me signaler les méfaits que celui-ci pourrait commettre en route.
“Le Capitaine-Commandant,
(Signé) “Sarrazzyn.”
“Colquilhatville, le 1er Mai, 1896.”
Pretty good for the State which boasts that it has put down the slave trade.
There is a passage showing the working of the rubber system which is so clear and authoritative that I transcribe it in full:
“I went to the homes of these men some miles away and found out their circumstances. To get the rubber they had first to go fully a two days’ journey from their homes, leaving their wives, and being absent for from five to six days. They were seen to the forest limits under guard, and if not back by the sixth day trouble was likely to ensue. To get the rubber in the forests—which, generally speaking, are very swampy—involves much fatigue and often fruitless searching for a well-flowing vine. As the area of supply diminishes, moreover, the demand for rubber constantly increases. Some little time back I learned the Bongandanga district supplied seven tons of rubber a month, a quantity which it was hoped would shortly be increased to ten tons. The quantity of rubber brought by the three men in question would have represented, probably, for the three of them certainly not less than seven kilog. of pure rubber. That would be a very safe estimate, and at an average of 7fr. per kilog. they might be said to have brought in £2 worth of rubber. In return for this